Tools I Recommend

Everyone benefits from a great set of tools. Here are the ones I like the most. Some of these are affiliate links – ie, if you end up buying from them, I will receive some compensation. Thanks for checking them out.

Website Hosting: BlueHost

• or, the one I’m using now is HostPapa

Email Marketing: My various email newsletters wouldn’t look so good and my whole setup wouldn’t be so fantastic without Constant Contact and their incredible support system. Get a free 2-month trial, here. I’ve been able to build lists for my various projects over the years – The Eleven: my monthly email to friends and family – Albertideation newsletter: all about email marketing and social media. Then, there’s Song a Day where I share my love of music. Finally, Farm My Yard is a project I’ve had going on for a few years to connect urban farmers with nearby homeowners who have yards to farm.  Sign up for one or more lists and see what you think. I’ve added my other email service provider links here.

If you want to take your email marketing to the next level you might give SharpSpring a try. 

I’ve been using Republic Wireless for my cell phone for years. I pay $20/mo. for unlimited everything.

Car Insurance. Metromile. I know it might seem strange to see this here – but I signed up for Metromile a while back and that has lowered my car insurance considerably. You pay a base rate and then for every mile. Thus, if you’re not driving a lot (which is the case for many people right now) your rates plummet. 

Scheduling: I’ve used vCita in the past as a scheduler. If you need help setting this up, let me know. There’s more to this platform than meets the eye and it’s a great way to offer various packages.

Webinars: For webinars I use Gotowebinar.  I’ve also heard good things about Zoom and I’ve used a couple of other platforms, but so far, GotoWebinar has them all beat.

WordPress plug-in for Social Sharing: Sumome

WordPress plugin for pop-up boxes to collect email addresses: Privy. This brings you the pop-up sign-up form for my sites.  It’s probably led to more email list sign-ups than all of my social media efforts combined.

I use Wisestamp to create a professional-looking signature on my outgoing emails. It makes things look like this

I use Canva for editing images and creating memes, for instance. I’ll add more to this post as I recall what’s missing.  I hope this is useful to you – I really couldn’t do what I do without the aid of these (mostly free) tools.

I also love Fiverr to get images/designs created quickly. Here’s a code for $10 off your first order.

For business travel – AirBnB

If you have any questions about a tool that’s not on the list, feel free to run it by me – I may have tried it in the past.  If you’d like to work together, check out my new guide to getting started.

Save your ears and be styling at the same time – Hearrings!

Here are my 11 Life Tips – tools for living a happier/healthier life. Like how to get a great night’s sleep.

6.26.18 Tools I learned about at this year’s Digital Summit in Portland, Oregon

https://emailclientmarketshare.com/

Single column emails only from now on

Postmaster tools in Gmail

Microsoft also has a version of this.

senderscore.org – blacklist lookup

Fixed width emails – 375 pixels – look into this

https://www.bestcssbuttongenerator.com/

Note to Chambers – I can offer your chamber training – virtually $ or in person $$

https://reallygoodemails.com/ – a way to learn what well-designed emails look like + they have a really awesome sign-up process.

Tools for ubiquity – Litmus, targeted.io, email on acid

Subject Line Matters a Lot! – the simpler the better – superlatives matter a lot

Always include Easter Eggs in an email.

Always say hello.

Keynote speaker mentioned: Countable page – Chelsea Handler mentioned it.  Emily’s List.

Viewing in a Browser is not a thing.  Social Links at the top -= not a thing, either.

MOZ – https://moz.com/local/categories – to do category research if you’re using MOZ.  Hard to find this page on their site…

Tumblr seems to be a thing.  I didn’t realize that.

Google Lighthouse: https://developers.google.com/web/tools/lighthouse/

– for a tech review of your website

– key to have a robot.txt file on your site for this to work and for better searchability

Google Search Console – worth signing up with

Screaming Frog – a way to check your website

https://www.redirect-checker.org/ –

Siteliner – https://www.siteliner.com/ checks for duplicate content

URL Profiler – link checker – https://urlprofiler.com/

GTMetrix – check page speed – https://gtmetrix.com/

https://www.metaforensics.io – full test of the website.

Enjoy, and let me know if you have any questions.